van der Maas Mark, Nower Lia
Center for Gambling Studies, School of Social Work, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, United States.
Center for Gambling Studies, School of Social Work, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, United States.
Addict Behav. 2021 Mar;114:106725. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2020.106725. Epub 2020 Nov 6.
Active military members and veterans both show elevated risk of Gambling Disorder. However, research comparing these groups to civilians in epidemiological samples is sparse. There is also some research suggesting that there is a stronger association between military service and poor mental outcomes for women. The current study applies bivariate analyses and generalized linear modelling predicting Problem Gambling Severity Index scores to a representative, complex survey sample of 2176 New Jersey adult residents. The results show that problem gambling scores for past and current military service members were more than double that of the civilian participants after controlling for relevant demographic and behavioral characteristics. Additionally, the relationship between problem gambling scores and military service was significantly stronger for women than men. Bivariate analyses indicated that active military service members scored higher on the Problem Gambling Severity Index, indicated greater weekly participation in online gambling, lottery, electronic gambling machine, and sports betting, and nearly 20 times the rate of suicidal ideation compared with civilians. Additional regression analysis show that among military service members problem gambling scores were associated with suicidal ideation, tobacco use, and substance use problems. The results are discussed in the context of a period of expansion of online gambling opportunities. Constrained options for leisure coupled with the high propensity for risk taking among military service members and the relative ease of concealing online gambling on base may expose military service members to disproportionately higher risk of Gambling Disorder.
现役军人和退伍军人患赌博障碍的风险均有所升高。然而，在流行病学样本中将这些群体与平民进行比较的研究却很稀少。也有一些研究表明，服役与女性较差的心理结果之间存在更强的关联。本研究对2176名新泽西成年居民的代表性复杂调查样本应用双变量分析和广义线性模型来预测问题赌博严重程度指数得分。结果显示，在控制了相关人口统计学和行为特征后，过去和现在的军人的问题赌博得分是平民参与者的两倍多。此外，女性的问题赌博得分与服役之间的关系比男性显著更强。双变量分析表明，现役军人在问题赌博严重程度指数上得分更高，表明每周参与在线赌博、彩票、电子赌博机和体育投注的频率更高，而且自杀意念发生率与平民相比高出近20倍。进一步的回归分析表明，在军人中，问题赌博得分与自杀意念、吸烟和物质使用问题有关。研究结果是在在线赌博机会不断增加的背景下进行讨论的。休闲选择受限，加上军人冒险倾向较高，以及在基地相对容易隐瞒在线赌博行为，可能使军人面临不成比例的更高的赌博障碍风险。
